It is often said that the natural variability of the wind makes it technically challenging and consequently expensive, to use wind turbines to generate significant amounts of our electricity. This argument is incorrect and in this post we explain why using evidence from 9 US states that are wind energy champions.

The graph shows that those nine states were led by Iowa which generated 27.4 percent of its electricity from the wind in 2013.

It shows that those high wind states have a lower average electricity price than the US (9.9 cents per kilowatt hour). The average price of electricity for those nine states was also less than the average price of 8.8 cents per kilowatt hour in Saskatchewan.

In short:1. high wind penetration is technically and financially achievable, and;2. high wind regions tend to pay less for their electricity.